U.S. senator calls for N. Korea to be put back on terror sponsor list

A U.S. senator is calling for North Korea to be put back on the State Department’s state sponsors of terror list, after the regime’s suspected assassination of Kim Jong-nam. Speaking with Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency on Wednesday, Republican Senator Corey Gardner said the incident was another reminder of North Korea’s brutality, adding that it’s important to prioritize the threat posed by Pyongyang.

Gardner, along with five other senators, sent a joint letter to the Treasury Department, asking it to consider re-listing the regime, as well as calling for more pressure through stronger sanctions. The U.S. put North Korea on the terror sponsor list in 1987, after a plane bombing that killed all 115 people on board, but the country was removed in 2008 by the George W. Bush administration in exchange for denuclearization deals.